Time is the most elusive yet dominant concept in the human experience. We struggle to understand it and we struggle to control it, yet our endless awareness and fear of time lurks behind all our endeavors. So, we invent devices…
Author: Rabbi Paul
Mishpatim – In The Presence Of The Lord
This week’s Torah portion Mishpatim can feel like a bit of a letdown following the sacred drama at Mount Sinai recorded for posterity in Yitro. At the conclusion of last week’s parasha Israel is given immortality with its designation as…
Yitro – Chosen? For What?
In the classic Broadway musical “Fiddler On the Roof” the main character Tevye the dairyman ironically quips while entreating G-d, “I know, I know. We are Your chosen people. But, once in a while, can’t You choose someone else?” In…
Va’eira – Accepting Our Heritage
It has been said that the life of Moses can be seen as three distinct movements, forty years each. First Moses spends the first forty years thinking he is somebody. He has fallen by providence into the royal court of…
Our Hope Has Not Perished – Vayera
For many of us this has perhaps seen like a year of hopelessness. The nation is politically bifurcated and the negative campaign ads continually suggest that we are on the verge of collapse and driving over the cliff. But the…
Noach – Lessons From Dry Ground
Parasha Noach seems sobering increasingly over the past several decades and especially this year. September and October seem to bring new catastrophic threats and concerns to the southeast portion of the Americas and the Caribbean Islands. This year as Hurricane…
Shabbat Shuvah – Scandalous!
The Bible is the best-selling book of all time. It is also one of the least read! Even those who claim love and fidelity for the Bible, who often quote chapter and verse, rarely have read the Scriptures in entirety!…
The Fourth Word: Contemplating the Final Dibberot of Yeshua
For millennia, the historical church has read and studied the “last words” of Yeshua’s crucifixion during lent and in preparation for the Easter Holy week. But I think this tradition has a very special and unique value for Messianic Jews…
Eikev – What Are You Willing to Live for?
The Philosopher Socrates declared, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” Sigmund Freud said the same in his own proprietary language, “Where id is, let ego be.” Most people only go through the motions daily, living out a pale imitation of…
Matot – A Place of Refuge
This week’s Torah portion contains a theme that in the ancient world was peculiar to the religion of Israel – the compassion, care and grace of their patron God. A historically popular approach to theology is to bifurcate of the…